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Tag Archives: Tattoo

Still In Pain

April 1, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
16 Comments

From a French Seller

With that grimace and those watery eyes, this boy seems to still be suffering the agonies he experienced in the tattooist’s chair. What a face! I imagine this was his attempt at trying to look like a tough guy. I think he needs more time to perfect his mannerisms for that role, don’t you?

His tattoo is a panther, I think. Or some other type of big cat. Given the heights of tattoo art these days, this is a rather underwhelming effort. I wonder if he added to it or even had work done over it?

Tattoo Man – Part Three

May 8, 2014
Tattoo Man Series, Vintage Photobooth
6 Comments

photoboothTattooManSeries03

Here is USA Tattoo Man and his friend once more . I think he is eating a hamburger but it could just be a bagel or filled bread roll, judging by his friend’s wee morsel. As with the previous posts in the series, that you can see here and here, I only own the above photo. You can see it in its original context below.

I have played with the tags in today’s edition. When I posted an image of myself eating a peanut butter dream bar,  I added “woman eating a banana” to see how may extra hits it got. (You can read the story behind why I did that, here.)  It turns out it is a rather successful ploy. My stats were very impressive for that day. So if you are here looking for a man/woman eating a sausage, or a man/woman eating a banana, sorry. You have been the victim of an extremely infantile prank – but hey, why were you searching under those tags anyway, hmm??

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Tattoo Man – Part Two

May 4, 2014
Tattoo Man Series, Vintage Photobooth
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photoboothTattooManSeries02

Following up from Part One, here is Tattoo Man on the phone in a photobooth with his partner. Once again I only own four individually cut photos from this series, this being the second of them.

Below are some of the complete strips from the original sale on Ebay. You can see the above image in its original context and two other strips of the same man and another partner who only appears in this one, heavily altered, series. It is also the only strip to be dated out of the dozen or so scanned from the seller’s website. It is hard to work out a scenario that explains why such a wonderful collection should have ended up in the public domain so quickly after its creation. (It is dated the 19th of May 2003.)

 

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Tattoo Man – Part One

May 1, 2014
Tattoo Man Series, Vintage Photobooth
8 Comments

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Here we have a  magnificent, peacock like, display from a young American gent, taken around the turn of the millenium. I would be curious to know if anyone can tell me what his tattoo might represent.

This is one of four photos that I purchased from a large series of individually cut photos, that were on Ebay some months ago. They were originally sold in complete strips by another seller, two of which you can see below, in low resolution scans. I missed out on the first auction, more’s the pity, but was able to take the grabs of the complete strips as a record of the original state of the items.

Three more pics to follow soon.

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A Certain Rugged Charm

November 27, 2011
Found Photobooth Photos
4 Comments

Flinders Street Station, December 1997

I found this large-format, single-shot photobooth photo at Melbourne’s, Victorian era, railway station at Flinders Street. I haven’t seen a machine with the option of choosing a large portrait photo in the city for a long time, probably since the day I found this in 1997.

I’d say this example of a booth photo is the epitome of why we call small id photos mugshots. With his unsmiling face, maple leaf ear tattoo, piercing deep blue eyes and furrowed brow it could easily have been a police identification photo. In fact a friend of mine had no trouble believing this was a picture of a wanted man. Personally, I think he has a certain rugged charm, despite his solemn demeanor.

So why was this image torn and discarded? If he was a Canadian, as suggested by the maple leaf, he may have wanted a picture to send home. A friendlier expression might have been more desirable for that purpose. Or did he really just want four identical shots for a passport or other id? He would not have been the first to have pressed the wrong button.

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